Kyle Brandt Admits He Tried ‘Poach’ ESPN’s Field Yates to Join NFL Network Last Year
ESPN finalized its acquisition of NFL Network on April 1, 2026, bringing both channels under a single corporate umbrella. During the 2026 NFL Draft, ESPN host Kyle Brandt revealed on air that he had tried to poach ESPN analyst Field Yates for NFL Network a year earlier. Yates declined the overture and subsequently signed a multiyear extension with ESPN in August 2025, solidifying his role as a leading NFL and fantasy football commentator. The three personalities now share the draft desk, illustrating the merged ecosystem’s collaborative potential.
Hazbin Hotel Renewed for a Fifth and Final Season
Amazon Prime Video announced that the cult‑favorite animated series Hazbin Hotel has been renewed for a fifth and final season. Created by Vivienne Medrano, the show evolved from a 2019 YouTube pilot into a full‑length musical black‑comedy series on the...
Dutton Ranch: Showrunner Fired From Yellowstone Spin-Off Series Ahead of Paramount+ Premiere
Paramount+’s Yellowstone spin‑off Dutton Ranch is set to premiere on May 15, but its showrunner, Chad Feehan, was dismissed just three weeks before the debut. Sources say the decision stemmed from friction with the series’ stars over his production style...
Prime Video Renews Hit Adult Animated Comedy "Hazbin Hotel" For a Fifth and Final Season
Prime Video announced at LVL UP Expo that the adult‑animated musical comedy Hazbin Hotel will return for a fifth and final season, concluding the series in more than 240 countries. The show, created by Vivienne Medrano and produced with A24 and Bento Box, originated...
Wednesday TV Ratings: Abbott Elementary, Chicago PD, MasterChef, Survivor, Police 24/7
On April 22, 2026, Nielsen released final ratings for the major broadcast networks' Wednesday lineup. Abbott Elementary continued to dominate the comedy slot, while procedural dramas such as Chicago PD and Chicago Fire posted stable numbers. Reality competition MasterChef recorded a modest...
Bear Grylls Is Running Wild: Season One Ratings
Fox revived the adventure‑reality franchise with *Bear Grylls Is Running Wild*, rebranding the former NBC/Nat Geo series for the 2025‑26 season. The first season sent celebrities such as Matthew McConaughey, Uma Thurman and MGK on 48‑hour wilderness challenges across Norway,...
Gen V Canceled After Two Seasons / Dutton Ranch Creator Ousted Ahead of Premiere / HBO Docuseries to Tackle the...
Amazon Prime Video announced that the YA spinoff *Gen V* will end after two seasons, even as the broader *The Boys* universe pivots to a new series, *Vought Rising*, slated for 2027. The cancellation comes amid mixed ratings and a...
Farmer Wants a Wife: Season Four Ratings
Season 4 of FOX’s dating reality series *Farmer Wants a Wife* returned with a revamped format featuring three bachelors seeking deeper connections. Nielsen’s final ratings, which include live, same‑day and DVR viewing, will be the primary metric for the show’s future....
Dancing with the Stars: Season 35; ABC Competition Series Renewed for 2026-27
ABC has officially renewed Dancing with the Stars for a 35th cycle slated for the 2026‑27 TV season. The 34th season, which concluded in November, delivered a 1.34 rating in the 18‑49 demo and attracted 6.49 million viewers, marking an 83%...
Prime Video Finalizes WNBA Broadcast Talent Roster for 2026
Amazon’s Prime Video has sealed an 11‑year partnership with the WNBA, expanding its role from occasional games to 31 national broadcasts and key postseason slots through 2036. The streamer unveiled its 2026 on‑air talent, headlined by former star Candace Parker...
Hulu Developing “Close Protection” Series
Hulu has acquired the Universal Television drama "Close Protection," a romantic thriller about an American bodyguard assigned to a British princess. The series is co‑created by Dean Georgaris and John Fox, who have an overall deal with Universal, with Georgaris...
Are We Gonna Have to Do This Corny ‘WWE Guy Makes a Scene’ Thing All Year Long Now?
ESPN and WWE continue their $1.6 billion partnership by inserting WWE talent into regular ESPN‑owned programming, most recently when WWE star Seth Rollins stormed off the set of Good Morning Football after a heated exchange about his wife, Becky Lynch. The...
Inside the Stream: Netflix Chugs Along, Growing Opportunistically
Netflix posted steady Q1 2026 growth as it moves into a more mature phase. The streamer added roughly 4.5 million new subscribers, pushing quarterly revenue up about 6% to $8.5 billion. Management highlighted opportunistic expansion into ad‑supported tiers, gaming titles, live‑sports rights and...
"Wuthering Heights" Begins Streaming Exclusively on HBO Max May 1
Warner Bros. Pictures' adaptation of “Wuthering Heights,” starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, will debut globally on HBO Max on May 1, 2026, with a linear broadcast the following night. HBO Max will also launch an American Sign Language version featuring Leila Hanaumi...
NBA Playoffs Return to NBC Sports Delivers Big Viewership Gains Over First Three Nights
NBC Sports returned to NBA playoff coverage after a 24‑year hiatus, delivering the network’s strongest early‑round ratings in decades. The first six games averaged 4.9 million viewers, a 38% increase over comparable 2025 coverage, with peaks of 6.7 million on both the...
Will Netflix’s Shaky Ad Business Be Reed Hastings’ Legacy, YouTube Won’t Be “TV” Until It Solves This
Netflix’s hastily launched ad‑supported tier has become a defining issue for outgoing CEO Reed Hastings, as the platform struggles to prove the segment’s profitability and geographic mix. While the tier isn’t a outright failure, vague subscriber data suggest growth is...
Inside the Stream – Netflix Chugs Along, Growing Opportunistically
Netflix posted steady Q1 growth as it shifts toward a more mature, diversified business model. While subscriber engagement slipped 15% year‑over‑year, the company highlighted its expanding ad‑supported tier, video‑podcast traction, and a strategic acquisition of the Radford Studio Center in...
Goodell’s Washington Ground Game
The NFL is under heightened regulatory pressure as the FCC launched a February inquiry into the league’s media‑rights strategy, followed weeks later by a Justice Department antitrust investigation. The scrutiny coincides with the league’s aggressive shift toward streaming platforms, a...
☀️ COMCAST’s Tricky Sports Play: Boost Revenue, Hurt Profits in Q1
Comcast’s Q1 2026 earnings showed a revenue lift from its aggressive sports‑rights strategy, but profit margins slipped as costs outpaced earnings. The company’s broadband segment recorded modest subscriber growth, helped by bundled wireless offerings, while its streaming service Peacock added...
Saturday TV Ratings 4/18/26: NBA Playoffs Dominate, To Philly With Love Modest for Hallmark, MLB Down From Last Saturday
Saturday’s TV ratings were led by the NBA playoffs, where the Rockets‑Lakers matchup on ABC pulled a 1.42 rating and 4.92 million viewers, outpacing all other broadcasts. MLB’s regional coverage on Fox drew 2.18 million viewers but slipped to a 0.41 rating,...
If You Can't Beat 'Em: France Télévisions Moves Its News Operation to YouTube
France Télévisions announced a strategic partnership with Google to broadcast its entire news lineup on YouTube, marking a decisive "streaming‑first" shift for the public broadcaster. The move is designed to reclaim advertising revenue that has migrated to digital platforms and...
Annecy Solidifies Its Reign: The €54 Million Global Hub for Animation Opens Its Doors
France’s Annecy will officially open the Cité internationale du cinéma d’animation on June 19, just before the annual Annecy International Animation Festival. The €54 million (≈ $59 million) complex, located beside the festival’s venues, offers production studios, post‑production labs, and a dedicated training academy....
"Sober and Efficient": France Télévisions Tones Down the Glitz for Cannes 2026
France Télévisions is scaling back its Cannes Film Festival coverage for the 2026 edition, opting for a "sober and efficient" approach. The broadcaster will allocate roughly €30 million (about $32 million) to a streamlined multi‑platform rollout, cutting on‑site staff by 20% and...
The Great Aggregation: Apple TV+ Touches Down on Prime Video in France
Apple’s streaming service Apple TV+ has been added to the French Amazon Prime Video catalog as of April 21. French Prime Video subscribers can now subscribe to Apple TV+ directly through Amazon for €9 per month, roughly $10. The move...
Here Come the TV Outcome Wars
The TV advertising ecosystem is pivoting from traditional rating metrics to outcome‑focused measurement, sparking a wave of new products and acquisitions. Nielsen, while still signing deals, launched an Outcomes Marketplace with RealEyes to capture attention and emotional responses. Meanwhile, challengers...
Why An Idea Ahead Of Its Time Might Deserve A Second Chance
In the mid‑2000s USDTV tried to turn a traditional over‑the‑air antenna into a low‑cost subscription platform, charging roughly $20 a month for a small bundle of cable networks delivered via encrypted digital signals. The service collapsed in 2007 after a...
How TV Learned to Underprice Itself
The smart‑TV platform V, formerly VIDAA and now on 50 million connected sets, unveiled its V Index at the StreamTV Europe conference in Lisbon. V Index is an open‑source initiative to reconcile the pricing gap that occurs when the same viewer is measured...
Saturday TV Ratings: 48 Hours, SNL, NASCAR, NBA Basketball, MLB Baseball
Saturday, April 18, 2026, saw CBS’s true‑crime series 48 Hours return with a fresh episode while the night’s ratings were driven by live sports—including MLB, the NBA tip‑off, NBA playoffs and NASCAR at Kansas Speedway. Reruns of shows such as...
Parker Posey to Host Hulu Reality Competition The Mob / The Bachelor Will Return in 2027 “with a Lot of...
Hulu announced a new unscripted series called "The Mob," a celebrity‑driven competition hosted by Parker Posey and produced by Studio Lambert and Primal Media, echoing the intrigue of "The Traitors." At the same time, ABC confirmed that "The Bachelor" will...
Krapopolis: Season Three Ratings + Viewer Votes
Fox’s animated series Krapopolis, created by Dan Harmon, has been officially renewed for a fourth season even though its live‑plus‑same‑day ratings remain modest. Season 2 delivered a 0.15 rating in the coveted 18‑49 demographic and about 606,000 viewers, and season 3’s numbers...
WrestleMania Simulcasts Average 1.7 Million Viewers on ESPN, ESPN2
ESPN aired WWE's WrestleMania 42 on its linear channels, drawing an average of 1.72 million viewers across the Saturday and Sunday simulcasts. Night 1 on ESPN2 peaked at 1.62 million, while Night 2 on ESPN reached 1.82 million, not counting the ESPN Unlimited stream that carried...
NBC Had ‘No Choice’ to Sell Big Ten Championship to Anyone Except Fox, per Report
NBC’s seven‑year Big Ten deal forced the network to resell the 2026 championship to Fox, not a streaming partner. Fox, which owns the Big Ten Network, holds ultimate authority over the game’s rights and paid NBC between $45 million and $55 million—well...
‘Zootopia 2’ Sets the Floor. ‘Avatar,’ ‘Hoppers,’ and ‘Star Wars’ Set the Ceiling'
Zootopia 2 generated 32 million global views in its first week and 28.6 million U.S. streaming hours, matching the performance of recent animated sequels like Moana 2 and Inside Out 2. Disney’s next slate—Avatar Fire & Ash, the original animated Hoppers, and Star Wars The Mandalorian & Grogu—shows divergent audience intent signals. Avatar leads...
Courtney Kemp’s New Showrunner Math: Budget, Franchise, Repeat
Courtney Kemp, the creator of Starz’s multi‑billion‑hour *Power* franchise, is debuting a new crime drama, *Nemesis*, on Netflix. She says studios now ask creators to prove a show’s budget, franchise potential, and global scalability before greenlighting. The shift reflects a...
NBC Sports President Jon Miller Reveals How NBC Convinced MLB to Sacrifice Revenue in New Deal
NBC Sports clinched a new Major League Baseball contract worth roughly $200 million per year, less than half of ESPN's previous $550 million deal. NBC argued that nationwide broadcast reach and promotional power outweighed the higher fees streaming services could offer. The...
Netflix Is Building the Pipes Its Future Competitors Will Use
Netflix’s Q1 2026 shareholder letter highlights a “more dynamic” media landscape driven by rising video supply from both human creators and generative‑AI tools. The company projects ad‑supported streaming revenue to double year‑over‑year, reaching roughly $3 billion in 2026, while subscription revenue...
The Gulf Buys Big Into Paramount. What It Wants in Return
Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE’s sovereign wealth funds are committing roughly $24 billion to Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, pushing the combined foreign stake in the merged entity to about 21.6 percent—near the FCC’s 25 percent cap. The deal would place two...
‘Hit Point’ First Look: U Reveals Images for New Crime Thriller Starring Nick Blood & Saffron Hocking
U has unveiled first‑look images for its new six‑part police thriller “Hit Point,” starring Nick Blood and BAFTA‑nominated Saffron Hocking. The series follows detectives Leo and Bella as they plunge into West London’s criminal underworld, blending high‑stakes action, romance and...
ESPN Opens NBA Playoffs with Most-Watched Playoff Game of Opening Weekend
ESPN kicked off the 2026 NBA Playoffs on April 22 with the most‑watched opening‑weekend game, as the Houston Rockets defeated the Los Angeles Lakers on ABC, averaging 5.2 million viewers and peaking at 6.4 million. Studio shows performed strongly, with Inside the...
NBC Sports' Manchester City-Arsenal Is Most-Watched Premier League Match in U.S. History
NBC Sports reported that Manchester City’s 2‑1 victory over Arsenal on April 19, 2026 became the most‑watched Premier League match in U.S. history, averaging 2.6 million viewers across NBC, Peacock, Telemundo and NBC Sports Digital. This marks the second time this...
‘Assassination Classroom’ Anime Series Coming to Netflix US and UK in May 2026
Netflix has confirmed that the popular Japanese anime series Assassination Classroom will join its US and UK libraries on May 1, 2026. The show, produced by Lerche and based on Yusei Matsui’s manga that sold over 27 million copies, has been...
CinemaCon: Amazon MGM Promises More Prime Deliveries
At CinemaCon, Amazon MGM Studios used the stage to cement its claim as a major theatrical distributor, riding the momentum of "Project Hail Mary," which is poised to exceed $300 million domestically and $600 million worldwide. The studio highlighted its upcoming slate,...
TV Is TV Again
VIDAA CEO Guy Edri argued that television should be treated as a single screen environment, not as separate linear, streaming, FAST or CTV markets. His V Index proposes real‑time, device‑level measurement to replace legacy panel metrics, positioning VIDAA’s operating system...
WarnerMount Vs. The Gathering Storm
Suspicions are mounting that Netflix is covertly financing the Hollywood “Block the Merger” campaign aimed at derailing the Paramount‑Warner Bros. Discovery (WarnerMount) consolidation. Recent actions by state attorneys general—most notably a federal jury’s finding against Live Nation/Ticketmaster and a California judge’s injunction...
Friday TV Ratings: 20/20, Happy’s Place, Fire Country, Penn & Teller: Fool Us, UFL Football
Friday, April 17, 2026 TV ratings released via Fast Affiliate Numbers show new episodes of Celebrity Jeopardy All‑Stars, 20/20, Sheriff Country, Fire Country, Boston Blue, Happy’s Place and Dateline NBC. Sports coverage featured the UFL Football matchup between the Renegades and Aviators....
Grok, Kling, Runway: AI Video’s Future Has Hollywood on the Outside Looking In
The AI video market has fractured after OpenAI shut down its Sora platform, leaving no single dominant player. Grok now captures the most traffic on social feeds, Runway is gaining traction in professional editing suites, and Kling is automating short‑form...
NBC’s Miller Time
Jon Miller, president of acquisitions at NBC Sports, outlined the network’s recent multibillion‑dollar rights strategy, including a $200 million three‑year MLB agreement and a historic $27 billion, 11‑year NBA contract. The deals secure Sunday Night Baseball, roughly 25 primetime games, and extensive...
Broadcasters vs Big Tech: The Streaming Challenge
At NAB 2024, broadcasters acknowledged that big‑tech platforms now dominate local advertising, forcing traditional TV stations to rethink survival strategies. The pending Nexstar‑Tegna merger, currently stalled by a federal judge, highlights the industry’s urgent need for scale, yet consolidation alone...
TriCoast's Nick Risher On Why Owning The Content Changes The Math
TriCoast Media, a film distributor with a 5,000‑title library and four FAST channels, has evolved into a supply‑side platform (SSP). By offering its content to publishers at a reduced revenue‑share rate, it can secure cheaper CPMs for backfill inventory. This...
Julianna Margulies Joins Paradise Season 3 / Beef Season 2 Viewership Tumbles / Boardwalk Empire Creator to Tackle Animation
Emmy winner Julianna Margulies will recur in Hulu’s post‑apocalyptic thriller Paradise for its third season, adding star power to Dan Fogelman’s series. Meanwhile, the second season of the premium drama Beef saw a steep viewership drop, falling roughly 30% from...